He was dying.

He was dying.

A bullet in his chest. A chain around his neck.

He was dead.

“Kingsley.”

He heard his name but didn’t respond. Dead men don’t scream.

“Kingsley, you’re in Manhattan. You’re home.”

He wasn’t home. He was bleeding to death on a shit-stained basement floor in Ljubljana.

“You’re alive.”

No, he wasn’t.

“Open your eyes. Can you hear me?”

He heard something in his ears. A popping. It startled him. He jumped. His eyes flew open. The world was a haze. But he did see something, a gray light.

“You have to breathe.”

He heard something other than the voice. A deep loud gasping wheeze. Over and over again.

Kingsley felt something on his back, a hand hitting him hard. It should have scared him, but instead the pain and the rhythm brought him back to himself.

“Kingsley, talk to me,” the voice ordered. It was Søren. His voice. His hand.

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said.

“Stop lying to me. You aren’t fine.”

Kingsley looked down. He sat on the floor of his playroom, his back to the wall. His shirt was sticky with sweat and his throat raw from wheezing.

“I’m fine,” he said again.

“Was that a panic attack?” Søren asked, crouching in front of him. “Or a flashback?”

“It was nothing.” Kingsley’s body was tense. His hands shook. “I think I spaced out for a second.”

“Two minutes,” Søren said. “Not one second.”

Kingsley tried to stand, but Søren put his hand on Kingsley’s shoulder and held him in place.

“Stay down. Look at me.”

“I don’t want to look at you,” Kingsley said.

“I don’t care. Look at me.” Søren took Kingsley by the chin, forcing the eye contact. “Tell me where you were.”

“Slovenia.”

“Why?”

“I was shot there.”

“Is that all that happened?”

“I think so.”

He glanced away. It hurt to be looked at like this, with such concern and pity. That wasn’t how he wanted Søren to look at him. He wanted Søren to look at him with lust and desire and want and hunger.

He tried to stand up again, but Søren still wouldn’t let him.

“I touched your throat with the whip, and you started wheezing like you were actually choking,” Søren said. “You fell to your knees and wouldn’t speak.”

“I’m fine,” Kingsley said for the third and final time.

Søren sighed and pushed a damp lock of hair off Kingsley’s forehead.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Søren said, his tone almost, but not quite, apologetic.

“You didn’t scare me. I’m not scared.” His racing heart, his churning stomach made a liar of him.

“Well, this answers my question.”

“What question?” Kingsley asked, dropping his head. He didn’t want to look in Søren’s eyes. He saw fear in them, not of Kingsley but for Kingsley. And something told him Søren wouldn’t be touching him again for a very long time.

If ever.

“Now I know why you don’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”

Kingsley looked up at Søren from the floor.

“Get out of my house,” Kingsley said.

“Kingsley?”

“You said I don’t owe you anything. Get the fuck out of my house.”

Søren got the fuck out.

10

SEVEN DAYS AND seven nights passed, and Søren didn’t come back to Kingsley’s house. He didn’t call, didn’t write, didn’t visit and didn’t once tell Kingsley he needed to get help. He was gone, gone, gone, and that was fine, fine, fine with Kingsley.

Except it wasn’t. Because Søren had promised never to leave him again. And he had.

Promises, promises.

Kingsley took another swig from the bottle of bourbon, coughed a little, and laid back on the chaise longue. He crossed his feet at the ankles and watched the light from the swimming pool dance across the ceiling. He had no idea why he still had the pool down here. No one ever swam in it. He kept the doors locked to prevent any of his inebriated houseguests from turning up facedown in it by accident. A bad sign when the only person who got anything out of the swimming pool was the pool boy. And even he wasn’t attractive enough for Kingsley to bother seducing.

But tonight he wanted to lie by the water while he drank. It was peaceful here. The pool wasn’t large or deep—ten by twenty feet across and four feet to the bottom. The floor was Mediterranean tile, and red, yellow and gold murals of northern Italy covered the walls. The paintings reminded him of a little village in the south of France he and his family had gone to every August when he was a child. A village right on the Mediterranean. Beautiful place, restful. Water, hills, vineyards. A vintner’s wife had seduced him there when he was twenty-two and hiding out while he recovered from his first gunshot wound. He had nothing but fond memories of the place. Being near water soothed his soul. If he had a soul. Did he have one? Didn’t matter if he did or not. He and God weren’t on speaking terms right now. And that was fine. Kingsley didn’t mind. What did he and God have to talk about anyway? The only thing he wanted to ask God was why He’d called Søren to the priesthood. Could God have played a sicker joke on him?